re: Great article about Rondo and what goes on in his head

quote:

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If he thinks he's smarter than you, he won't listen to you.

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AS A FRESHMAN at Eastern High School in 2001, Rondo took a sophomore AP geometry class, taught by a man named Doug Bibby. He didn't do homework. He wouldn't bring his books. He frequently fell asleep at the back of the classroom, waking up only when an angry Bibby called on him to answer a question. Rondo would rouse himself, glance at the board, blurt out the correct answer and resume his slumber. He aced all his tests, which led Bibby to suspect Rondo of cheating, so the teacher gave Rondo different tests. "He aced those too," Bibby says. To send a message, Bibby still gave Rondo a D. It was, Bibby says, "a pissing contest."

IT'S 9:30 ON a February morning in 1994, and eight third-grade students at downtown Louisville's Engelhard Elementary School file into a classroom. They sit two a side at a pair of rectangular wooden tables pressed together to form a square. One of these children is what their teacher will one day call "the biggest challenge of my life."

The boy grasps concepts instantly and easily. He has a curious knack for analyzing numbers in ways that others do not -- so much so that he actually teaches the teacher new ways to solve equations, methods she'll go on to teach other students for years to come.

He finishes every assignment first, blazing through multiplication sheets, and the teacher knows to always have another activity ready, either in her hand or in a blue folder with work just for him. Or perhaps she'll ask the quiet boy with narrow cheeks who questions just about everyone about everything to formulate math equations for her to solve.

She knows that for as wildly gifted as this 9-year-old is, he can be just as frustrated with others who are not. "He just didn't understand why everyone else doesn't get it," recalls Melanie Benitez, still teaching at Engelhard, 21 years later.